


Not How We Thought

by missmichellebelle



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, Exes, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, Implied Relationships, M/M, Melancholy, Old Friends, Post-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s over it—over everything. There isn’t anything to even <i>be</i> over any more, that’s how long ago it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not How We Thought

**Author's Note:**

> [“It Is What It Is” - Lifehouse]()  
>       prompted by anonymous

_too long we’ve been denying_  
_now we’re both tired of trying_  
_we hit a wall and we can’t get over it_  
_nothing to relive, it’s water under the bridge  
_ _you said it, I get it—I guess it is what it is_

*

Chris wonders when they all started running together. On his third glass of champagne or his second glass of wine? Back when getting an invitation to each party actually meant something, or not until after it just became another part of his night? Another obligation he had to meet?

He leans on the bar in a way he could never get away with if this was a public gathering. As it were, most of the people around him are miles above him in the industry and could care less who he is or what he does or why he’s there. They’re all there for a reason, after all, and while they can wear the smiles and say their congratulations through them when the world is watching, these parties aren’t for that. They’re for celebrating, yes, but in a way that the rest of the world isn’t generally allowed to see.

But there’s always that slip up. Always that camera phone that takes a picture conveniently at the wrong time, or the spies of the media that happened to slip by. But Chris isn’t doing anything scandalous, sitting at the bar and nursing his rum and diet, so they’ll leave him be. After all, he’s practically faceless in a room full of faces.

He’s tired. Can feel the exhaustion stretched too tight in his shoulders, and wonders how much longer he has to be here before he can go home and lay down. He won’t sleep, his brain still too wound up for something so luxurious as a good night’s sleep, but laying down… That would be nice.

A body sidles up next to him at the bar—another somebody come to wave over the bartender—so he pays no mind to it until the person is way too far into their comfort zone.

“Do you—” the words die on his mouth as he turns with a tired glare, and meets a warm, friendly pair of eyes that he would recognize anywhere. From the cover of a CD too long in the making, or the hundredth magazine cover, or the silver screen. He spent too many years looking into them not to be able to recognize them.

“Hey, Chris,” Darren says, his voice too soft and gentle given where they are. It’s a surprise Chris hears him at all. Without any sort of invitation, Darren takes the barstool next to him, hand curled around a glass that—unless Darren takes his vodka on the rocks now—just holds water.

“Darren.” The name feels old and rusty in his mouth, unused as it’s been for… Shit, how many years now? Chris has lost count. It’s not that him and Darren haven’t been at the same parties or gatherings, but there’s always been this strange understanding between them that they orbit each other without ever interacting. It had hurt, at first, but Chris had come to terms with it. Had accepted that, in the long term, it was better.

Easier.

The silence between them is overwhelmingly huge and uncomfortable. Chris sips his drink and tries not to look too hard at Darren. He’s older now, well into his 30s, and aged just as well as Chris had always imagined he would. Although, Chris had always pictured him with a little grey in his hair, some wrinkles, maybe, but Hollywood has denied him those things. Darren’s face is too known for it to change in such ways. For it to become so uncommercial.

He’s wearing his glasses—a different shape and style than they’d been all those years ago, now more befitting of whatever’s on trend now—but Chris remembers nights laughing and pushing glasses up with the tip of his finger, and there’s a faint ache deep in his chest.

Still there, after all these years.

“I saw your movie,” Darren says suddenly, rolling his most-likely water in his palms, making the condensation stick to his palms. “It was—it was great. You got snubbed tonight.”

Chris shrugs. He poured a lot of time into that script, and he’s lucky it got a nomination. It would have been amazing to win, but he wasn’t expecting it.

“Thanks.” The gratitude sounds false even though he means it. Are they making small talk? Is that what they’re doing? He glances to the side, and Darren is staring at him—open, unabashedly—and Chris has to glance away again. “How’s the new TV thing going?”

He just had a pilot in the fall, Chris thinks. He hadn’t watched it.

“It’s all right. The ratings aren’t what we expected, so I won’t be surprised if they cancel us.”

“You don’t sound all that beat up about it,” Chris surmises, and this time he sees Darren shrug out of the corner of his eye.

“There’s been some tension with the director.” Darren’s voice is dry. “Let’s just say no one is going to be heart broken when things are over.”

So many things go unsaid in that moment that Chris almost stands and leaves. Has to force himself not to. It’s been  _years_. It’s not still getting to him.

It’s not.

He’s over it—over everything. There isn’t anything to even  _be_  over any more, that’s how long ago it was.

“How’re things with—” Darren cuts off. Not to avoid saying his name, but because he doesn’t know what it is. And why should he? Chris doesn’t exactly go public with his relationships.

“Fine.” As fine as things ever are with dating someone who isn’t in the limelight. “How’s married life treating you?” He doesn’t mean to sound as bitter as he does—only wishes he had the same level of commitment ringed around his hand, if not through marriage than something else. As if he has something to prove. Chris remembers the receiving invitation, and how he’d stuffed it in a drawer and forgotten about it. He’d seen the pictures on the cover of a magazine in the grocery store a few months later, had stared at the cover too long, and had moved away from it and on with his life.

“It’s not.” Darren’s voice is thin, and Chris glances at him as he takes a long drink of his water. It is water, right? “You didn’t hear?” Darren lifts his left hand and wiggles his fingers. “Divorced.” He smiles, but it’s empty, and Chris’s mouth parts in surprise. He hadn’t heard—but then again, he hadn’t exactly been keeping tabs on Darren’s personal life?

He can tell himself it’s because he doesn’t care, but he knows the truth of the matter is that he cares far, far too much.

“I’m sorry,” Chris finds himself saying, because what the fuck else does someone say to that?

“Yeah.” Darren nods, takes another sip of his drink. “It’s okay. It’s better this way. I don’t think either of us was really happy with… With everything.”

The everything feels loaded, and Chris wants to ask, but doesn’t.

Everything.

Chris hasn’t been happy with everything in a long time, but he’s pretty sure that’s life. It’s not how he thought life would be, but it is what it is, right? He might be a writer, but he’s not naive enough to believe that things like happy endings happen. Not for him, not for anyone.

It doesn’t matter how hard you work for it, or what promises you make, or how you think the world around you might change. In the end, it doesn’t fucking matter.

Happiness—real happiness—only exists in storybooks.

There’s a reason Chris is a writer, after all.

He takes another sip of his drink, and decides it’s time to leave. He’s saved enough face for the evening. His house and his pets and probably another drink are waiting for him at home.

“Chris,” Darren says, as if he can sense Chris getting ready to leave, which—fuck him. Fuck him for that. For still being able to read Chris. He lost that privilege. His fingers brush Chris lightly on the wrist, and Chris jerks away from the touch, turning to stare at Darren with startled eyes. He looks hurt by the gesture, but doesn’t back down. “Do you want to get dinner sometime? Catch up?”

“I’m seeing someone,” Chris says, as if they hadn’t already talked about it, and Darren huffs out a laugh, brushing through curls that are cropped too short.

“I’m not—I mean, not that I wouldn’t want—” Darren shakes his head, takes a deep breath. “I know, I just thought…”

“That we could grab dinner. Catch up. After all these years,” Chris drawls, and Darren does glance away then, Chris’s acknowledgement of their previous, unspoken agreement coloring him with shame. “What do you think this is, Darren? You don’t owe me anything, and I certainly don’t owe you anything.”

“I know that, and, fuck, I know it’s been a long time, I was just…” Darren huffs out a breath. “I was just  _trying_ , okay? Fuck me for trying, all right. I thought… I thought it’d been long enough.”

Has it? Chris isn’t sure. He thinks of all the times he’d almost called Darren, texted him, sent him a fucking well-composed letter, but stopped.  _It’s been too long_ , he’d told himself all those times, slowly doing his own damage to the growing distance between them.

Was it really this simple? Just one of them reaching out a hand and the other still trusting them enough to take it?

Darren pulls something out of his pocket and sets it on the bar, not presumptuous enough to even slide it all the way in front of Chris.

“That’s my current number. I’m on break for awhile, won’t be hopping around, so just… Let’s set something up while I’m in town, okay?”

Chris doesn’t say anything, just tucks the piece of paper into his pocket and then sighs heavily, grabbing a cocktail napkin and a pen from his jacket—he always has a fucking pen on him, somewhere.

“Here’s mine.” His numbers come out jagged, nervous. “Probably better if you call me. I was never good at following through with plans.”

Their fingers touch when Chris slides the napkin down the bar.

“I remember.”

The next day, there’s a picture of their backs on some tabloid, their heads bent together as they speak and a headline that reads EX-COSTARS CRISS AND COLFER RECONNECT NEARLY A DECADE AFTER GLEE ENDS. Chris only knows about it because Darren texts him a picture of it, and Chris hesitantly responds, “It always makes me nervous when tabloids are true.”

*

_if the time could turn us around  
what once was lost may be found for you and me_

**Author's Note:**

> [read, reblog, & like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/128890459435/not-how-we-thought)


End file.
